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Livin'
With The Sims:
theAntiELVIS explores the wild and wacky world that is Will Wright's The Sims,
asking the inevitable quesiton, "is The Sims the first step toward a virtual
life where everyone is Swedish?"

The single player mode
of UT relies on bots. Will you be porting over any of the bot code from
Unreal, or will Steve Polge be rewriting it from scratch?

Why would you throw out such
a good starting point? Much of Steven's code is crossing over to UT,
with an insane amount of enhancements and tweaks.

Will the bots have moods?
Can a bot get frustrated and start a more aggressive hunt?

The bots will have moods
but only according to what the player wants them to do. You'll be able
to tell them to attack, or defend, guard your butt, or any other number
of commands.

Let’s be totally honest
here. How good can CTF with a mostly bot-filled team actually be? Is
it your goal to create AI that can pose for believable people?

I'll answer that with an
anecdote.

Yesterday I was playing 2
on 2 CTF with myself and bots. This took place on a map called "Facing
Worlds," which takes place on an asteroid that is spinning in space
with two huge towers on either end. We're obviously caught in the gravitational
pull of a nearby planet, as we can see we're slowly rotating around
it. I'm on the red team. I decide I'm going to take my sniper rifle
and go to the top of the tower and play Grassy Knoll for a while. I
order my bot to go after the flag and I load up on ammo and zoom in
a few hundred yards. The bot looks like a little marine out of a real-time
strategy game. He grabs a rocket launcher and starts making his way
towards the base. A blue enemy comes out from behind the base. I cap
him in the head and he drops. My bot zips in the base and I see some
gibs come flying out from behind the wall... I start to get concerned
for him when I hear him over my intercom "Red leader! I've got the flag!"
I see a blue glow coming out of the base (he's glowing now that he has
the flag) and my buddy comes zipping out, flag strapped to his back.
The enemy bots are back on his tail again after respawning and start
attacking. I cap both of them and clear the way for my teammate as he
comes back to our base and scores.

Do you find the "arena"
style maps in Unreal Tournament easier, or harder to design for?

Both. Each style of play
has many things you have to watch out for.

Deathmatch maps should be
recursive and have very few dead ends, whereas single player maps tend
to take you on a (mostly) linear progression from start to finish. Each
style of design has its own elements to master, and a person who can
make a great DM level can't always make a great SP level.

Here’s a question that’s
been eating me up…you’ve got this uber-weapon called the ‘Redeemer’
right? So the thing can be fired so that you switch to a projectile
camera and control it by hand. Am I crazy, or does this just leave you
completely open while your body’s just standing there twiddling its
thumbs?

Yep.

That's the beauty of the
gun. It is so powerful and controllable, but if you steer the rocket
you become a sitting duck.

Do you think the future
of the first person genre lies in multiplayer or single player gaming?

This is a commonly asked
question and it always amazes me how someone can make such a broad statement
such as "Multiplayer gaming is the future! Single player is dead!" I
love single player. I love multiplayer. Each form of gaming has its
own moments that cannot be simulated in the other. In single player
you're the hero, the star of the drama, you're The Man. You can't have
a Skaarj Introduction in multiplayer! But, in single player you can't
launch your buddy halfway across the level with a well timed rocket
attack, or team up with someone to take out a common foe. Each type
of gaming has its own merits and each are in their infancy.

Got any unreleased UT
screenshots lying around? ;)

Lemme see what I can dig
up for you.

Thanks!

Let’s talk about the other
Unreal projects in the works, shall we? What’s up with Unreal 2?

Legend is fleshing out a
kick-ass design right now. We have the utmost of confidence in Mike
Verdu and crew to produce a great Unreal game. That's all I can
say about that for now.

The Unreal level pack?

Legend is working on a traditional
single player level pack that will feature some great surprises for
fans of the series as well as folks who have never played Unreal before.
Some fantastic level designers that I know from Matt Sefton's SPQ page
are working on it, so it will be killer.

What are your impressions
of some of the licensed Unreal games in development?

Some are incredible, some
are okay, and many I haven't seen.

Wheel of Time?

Breathtaking. A perfect mix
of strategy, fantasy, and first person action.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse?

I've only seen some neato
pre-rendered worm and wolf screens from this

bad-boy.

Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee?

The Oddworld guys are awesome,
but I haven't seen anything on Munch yet. They've really got their shit
together over there, so I'll expect nothing less than a first rate product.

Duke Forever?

Oh, it will suck and no one
will buy it. ::wink::

George and crew have got
some of the best shit-filters in the biz. They'll deliver something
that'll make the rest of the development world pee their pants.

How about the ones already
out there? What’d you think of Klingon Honor Guard?

-Daikatana will be
fun because Romero, like George Broussard, has a good shit filter. He
knows what is fun and what is lame.

-I'm dying to get Lunar:
Complete on the Playstation, because it is one of the few great love
stories I've ever played. Few games bring me to tears and Lunar1 did
that for me.

Is there any game out
there that you wished you had worked on?

That's a tough question,
right up there with "Now that you're getting married, is there anyone
you regret not sleeping with?" I'd have to say I'm pretty happy with
things the way they are. Sure, the grass always seems greener, but I'm
more excited about what I can do in the future rather than what I may
have wanted to work on in the past.

Got a closing statement
to say?

Yeah, when the hell is someone
going to make a Buffy the Vampire Slayer game anyways?

Make it third person like
Tomb Raider and have Buffy's outfits change every other level or so...
you could have tons of karate attacks as well as the stakes, crossbows,
holy water, etc... Imagine Sunnydale recreated in beautiful 3d! Rescue
Buffy's mother from Spike! Get Angel out of his bad mood and inside
before the sun comes up and fries him!

Giles could be your dispatcher,
like JC in "SiN," offering tips on how to beat monsters and what weaponry
to use. Willow could make you protection spells... Faith could be your
backup Slayer, and you could give her orders like "Watch my back!" or
"Hey can I borrow your necklace?"

Uh, no wait...

Gaming has a long way to
go before it is taken seriously by the masses. Recent products such
as Metal Gear Solid prove that an interactive movie is truly
an achievable goal, and grand social experiments like Ultima Online
prove that there is more to gaming than shoot and kill. With the recent
advancements in hardware I feel that we're really moving forward as
an industry and the future looks amazingly bright.

Or something.

Thanks, Cliff! Check out
Jazz Jackrabbit 2 (published by the Gathering
of Developers) and Unreal (published by GT
Interactive) in stores now, and Unreal Tournament when it's released
in a few months!

-
Jason "loonyboi" Bergman is the editor-in-chief here at loonygames.
His girlfriend is very understanding.